Whether stuck somewhere due to weather conditions, relocated away from home, or sheltering-in-place with or without electricity, you will want to engage your children in activities in order to help them stay calm or keep them from being bored. Below are links to a variety of activities children and adults can do together to pass the time:

Co-sponsored by the NCCTS Policy Program and Task Force and the Complex Trauma and Developmental Trauma Disorder Work Group, this webinar will detail how National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) researchers and practitioners with expertise in complex trauma and children partnered with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), and the New York State Department of Health to establish complex trauma in children as an eligible condition for health home coverage. This translation of research and practice into policy provides an enhanced treatment and financing benefit for children exposed to complex trauma. Learn how New York State put this concept into practice and generated a complex trauma referral workflow for this population of children.

Network members Nancy Kassam-Adams and Meghan Marsac are co-authors of Brief Practical Screeners in English and Spanish for Acute Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms in Children in the December 2016 issue of Journal of Traumatic Stress. Authors aimed to identify and evaluate short forms of the Acute Stress Checklist for Children in English (ASC-Kids) and Spanish (Cuestionario de Estres Agudo-Ninos [CEA-N]). The study demonstrated that the two very brief measures that the authors presented (the ASC-6/CEA-6 with six items and the ASC-3/CEA-3 with three items) performed well as initial screens to estimate current acute PTSS and to detect current ASD status, across several samples of children and adolescents with recent trauma exposure.

M. C. Kenny, A. Vazquez, H. Long, and D. Thompson have co-authored Implementation and Program Evaluation of Trauma-Informed Care Training Across State Child Advocacy Centers: An Exploratory Study in Children and Youth Services Review, 73, 15-23. Authors evaluated the effectiveness of a training program that utilized a modified version of a Trauma-Informed Care (TIC) curriculum accessible through the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) among 203 professionals employed at child advocacy centers (CAC) in Florida. The workers' TIC knowledge level was examined prior to the training, immediately thereafter, and in a 12-month follow-up. Participants in general had similar levels of TIC knowledge before the training although the knowledge level was significantly affected by race/ethnicity, years of working experience, and educational degree. Authors found that participants' TIC knowledge universally and significantly increased after training, and that the significant increase still maintained in the 12-month follow-up test. Authors suggest that training efforts should be conducted frequently to ensure that CAC employees get repeated exposure to the information in order to ultimately improve the services they provide to victims.

The study by network colleagues Esther Deblinger, Elisabeth Pollio, Melissa Runyan, and Robert Steer Improvements in Personal Resiliency Among Youth Who Have Completed Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: A Preliminary Examination, being published in the March 2017 issue of Child Abuse & Neglect, examines hypothesized positive changes in 157 youth ages 7—17 who had experienced child sexual abuse (CSA) before and after participating in TF-CBT with their non-offending caregivers. Study results suggest that completing TF-CBT not only reduces symptom distress (i.e., PTSD and depression), but also seems to lead to greater feelings of mastery and emotional relatedness, and reduced emotional reactivity to stresses. The results indicated that significant improvements in personal resiliency had occurred over time, with effect sizes less than those found for posttraumatic stress symptoms, but comparable to those found for self-reported depression reductions.

This project was funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The views, policies, and opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of SAMHSA or HHS.